via @navytimes

For the first time in the Navys 236-year history, a woman will be pinned with a fourth star. Vice Adm. Michelle Howard will be promoted Tuesday at Arlington National Cemetery, and will become the vice chief of naval operations, the services No. 2 officer. A 1982 Naval Academy graduate, Howard has achieved many firsts in her career. She was the first black woman to command a ship  the amphibious dock landing ship Rushmore in 1999  and went on to command Amphibious Squadron 7 and later Expeditionary Strike Group 2. Many of the barriers she faced and surmounted dont exist anymore, or at least not to the same degree they did at the outset of her career, Howard said in a Monday interview. My perspective is that its the opportunities that exist for [women] that is the biggest change [from when I joined], she said. Now I think about it all these years later, the combat e...